Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:11:59.502Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The paradox of landscape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert Johnston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

‘The paradox of landscape’ is that, in theory, landscape aspires to a totality of human experience, but in practice it suppresses the complexity of the human experience. By supposing a ‘landscape perspective’ in the past, archaeologists are imposing a modern view of the world. In consequence, more varied perspectives should be considered during any archaeological inquiry. This is not a criticism of the use of landscape as a term to distinguish the wider spatial relationships between places which exist in the present. What is suggested as being unjustifiable is the use of the ‘landscape perspective’ to orientate and contextualize past human experience. This critique is illustrated and complemented by a case-study examining prehistoric land enclosure in Britain.

Le paradoxe du paysage est qu', en théorie, la notion de paysage aspire à représenter la totalité de l'expérience humaine de l'espace, cependant, en pratique, elle supprime cette complexité. En attribuant une conscience du paysage aux hommes du passé, les archéologues imposent une vision moderne du monde. On devrait par conséquent tenir compte de perspectives plus variées dans les études archéologiques. Ceci ne constitue pas une critique de l'utilisation du terme ‘paysage’ pour définir des relations spatiales plus larges entre les lieux qui existent aujourd'hui. Mais on suggère qu'il est injustifié d'utiliser ce terme pour orienter et replacer dans son contexte les expériences humaines passées. Cette idée est illustrée par une étude de cas qui examine les limites parcellaires en Grande-Bretagne durant la préhistoire.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Das ‘Landschaftsparadox’ besteht darin daß Landschaft theoretisch nach einer Ganzheit menschlicens Briebns strebt, aber praktisch die Komplexität menschlichens Erlebens unterdrückt. Wenn Archäolog(inn)en eine. ‘Landschaftsperspektive’ für die Vergangenheit einnehmen, heißt das, ihr eine moderne Weltsicht aufzuzwingen. Während einer archäologischen Untersuchung sollten deshalb auch andersartige Perspektiven in Betracht gezogen werden. Dies ist keine Kritik am Gebrauch von ‘Landschaft’ als Begriff, der die weiteren räumlichen Beziehungen zwischen Plätzen bezeichnet, die in der Gegenwart existieren. Was hingegen für ungerechtfertigt gehalten wird, ist die Anwendung der ‘Landschaftsperspektive’, um menschliches Erleben in der Vergangenheit zu kontextualisieren. Diese Kritik wird illustriert und ergänzt durch eine Fallstudie über vorgeschichtliche Landeinfriedungen in Grossbritannien.

Keywords

field-systemslandscapeprehistorytheory
Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , 1998 , pp. 313 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Sage Publications 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrett, John C., 1994. Fragments from Antiquity: an Archaeology of Social Life in Britain 2900–1200 BC. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bender, Barbara, 1992. Theorising landscapes and the prehistoric landscape of Stonehenge. Man 27: 735–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boast, Robin, 1997. A small company of actors: a critique of style. Journal of Material Culture 2: 173–98.Google Scholar
Bowen, Henry C. and Fowler, Peter J. (eds), 1978. Early Land Allotment in the British Isles. Oxford: BAR (Brit. Ser.) 48.Google Scholar
Bradley, Richard, Entwhistle, Roy and Raymond, Francis, 1994. Prehistoric Land Divisions on Salisbury Plain: the Work of the Wessex Linear Ditches Project. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Chapman, John, 1988. From ‘space’ to ‘place’: a model of dispersed settlement and Neolithic society. In Burgess, Colin, Topping, Peter, Mordant, Claude and Maddison, Margaret (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe (Part 1): 21–46. Oxford: BAR (Int. Ser.) 403(i).Google Scholar
Hoare, Colt, Richard, Sir, 1810. The History of Ancient Wiltshire. London.Google Scholar
Descola, Philippe and Pálsson, Gísli, 1996. Introduction. In Descola, Philippe and Pálsson, Gísli (eds), Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives: 1–21. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eder, Klaus, 1996 [1988]. The Social Construction of Nature: a Sociology of Ecological Enlightenment, trans. Ritter, Mark. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Ellen, Roy, 1996. Introduction to debate entitled: Human Worlds are Culturally Constructed. In Ingold, Tim (ed.), Key Debates in Anthropology: 101–4. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fleming, Andrew, 1985. Land tenure, productivity, and field systems. In Barker, Graeme and Gamble, Clive (eds), Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe: 129–46. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Remino, Andrew, 1987. Coaxial field systems: some questions of time and place. Antiquity 61: 188–202.Google Scholar
Fleming, Andrew, 1988. The Dartmoor Reaves: Investigating Prehistoric Land Boundaries. London: Batsford.Google Scholar
Fleming, Andrew, 1989. The genesis of coaxial field systems. In Torrence, Robin and Ernst van der Leeuw, Sander (eds), What's New? A Closer Look at the Process of Innovation: 63–81. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Ford, Steve, Bowden, Mark, Mees, Geoff and Gaffney, Vince, 1988. The date of the ‘Celtic’ field systems on the Berkshire Downs. Britannia 19: 401–14.Google Scholar
Fowler, Peter J., 1983. The Farming of Prehistoric Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Cyril Sir, 1923. The Personality of Britain: Its Influence on Inhabitant and Invader in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times, 1st edn. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales.Google Scholar
Francaviglia, Richard V., 1978. The Mormon Landscape: Existence, Creation, and Perception of a Unique Image in the American West. New York: AMS Press.Google Scholar
Hill, J. D., 1989. Re-thinking the Iron Age. Scottish Archaeological Review 6: 16–24.Google Scholar
Hoskins, W. G., 1955. The Making of the English Landscape. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim, 1992. Culture and the perception of the environment. In Croll, Elisabeth and Parkin, David (eds), Bush Base, Forest Farm – Culture, Environment and Development: 39–56. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim, 1993. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25: 152–74.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim, 1995. Building, dwelling, living: how animals and people make themselves at home in the world. In Strathem, Marilyn (ed.), Shifting Contexts: Transformations in Anthropological Knowledge: 57–80. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B., 1970. Landscape: Selected Writings of J. B. Jackson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Nicholas and Rose, Peter, 1994. Bodmin Moor: An Archaeological Survey. Vol. 1, The Human Landscape to c. 1800. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Johnston, Robert, 1998. Approaches to the perception of landscape: philosophy, theory, methodology. (To appear in Archaeological Dialogues 5/1:54–68).Google Scholar
Johnston, Robert and Pollard, Joshua, 1997. Excavation and survey at Kellah Burn, Northumberland. Universities of Durham and Newcastle Archaeological Reports 20: 25–8.Google Scholar
Kahn, Miriam, 1990. Stone-faced ancestors: the spatial anchoring of myth in Wamira, Papua New Guinea. Ethnology 29: 51–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Eric M., 1995. A brief hermeneutic on the co-constitution of nature and culture in the West including some contemporary consequences. History of European Ideas 20: 649–59.Google Scholar
Mercer, Roger J. (ed.), 1981. Farming Practice in British Prehistory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Nash, George, 1997. Archetypal landscapes and the interpretation of meaning. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7: 57–69.Google Scholar
Rivers, Pitt, Augustus, L.F., 1898. Excavations in Cranborne Chase Vol. IV. Privately printed.Google Scholar
Pryor, Francis, 1980. Excavations at Fengate, Peterborough, England: third report. Northamptonshire Archaeological Society/Royal Ontario Museum.Google Scholar
Pryor, Francis, 1996. Sheep, stockyards and field systems: Bronze Age livestock populations in the Fenlands of eastern England. Antiquity 70: 213–324.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Peter J., 1979. Iron-Age Farm: the Butser Experiment. London: British Museum Publications.Google Scholar
Spratt, Don A., 1989. Linear Earthworks of the Tabular Hills of North-east Yorkshire. Sheffield: University of Sheffield Department of Archaeology and Prehistory.Google Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn, 1980. No nature, no culture: the Hagen case. In MacCormack, Carol P. and Strathern, Marilyn (eds), Nature, Culture and Gender. 174–222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stukeley, William, 1776. Itinerarium Curiosum, 2nd edn. London.Google Scholar
Taçon, Paul, 1991. The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in western Arnhem Land/Australia. Antiquity 65: 192–207.Google Scholar
Thomas, Julian, 1993. The politics of vision and the archaeologies of landscape. In Bender, Barbara (ed.), Landscape: Politics and Perspectives: 19–48. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Tilley, Christopher, 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Van der Veen, Marijke, 1992. Crop Husbandry Regimes: an Archaeobotanical Study of Farming in Northern England 1000BC–AD500. Sheffield: J. R. Collis Publications.Google Scholar
Zubrow, Ezra B.W., 1994. Knowledge representation and archaeology: a cognitive example using GIS. In Renfrew, Colin, and Zubrow, Ezra B. W. (eds), The Ancient Mind: Elements of a Cognitive Archaeology: 107–18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar